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LAYER BY
LAYER
This time we’ll be
SIMON BUDIG
So far we have always been familiar with images as which is sufficient for a rough orientation, and finally
a screen full of pixels. Most of the slightly more the name of the layer. It is worthwhile, especially
dealing with layers. ambitious image processing programs on the other when there are lots of layers, to select meaningful
Layers are the method hand offer another method for flexible handling of names – with a double-click on the name, a small
various image elements - layers. Imagine layers as dialog opens in which you can change the name.
of choice when it transparent sheets of film. An image consists of The current layer is marked in blue. All painting
comes to organising several films which are laid one on top of the other operations and every plugin command works on
in a pile. The films have transparent areas through this layer. With a single click on the preview or the
and arranging image which the underlying films become visible. name of the layer you can change to another layer
data easily. Let’s take a look at a simple example of how to with which you’d like to work.
work with layers. Start Gimp and open a new At the lower end of the dialog you will see six
image. Use <Image>/Dialogs/Layers, Channels and buttons, with which you can execute basic layer
paths... or [Ctrl+L] to open the central control point operations. With the first button you create a new
for working with layers (See Figure 1). layer, the second and third buttons move the layer
The main part of the dialog is the white area in up or down, the fourth creates a copy of the current
the middle. Here you can see the individual layers layer, the fifth anchors a floating selection, and
listed line by line. The eye at the beginning of the the sixth deletes a layer. Other important operations
line shows whether the layer is visible at the moment can be found by clicking with the right mouse
(with a click on this you can make a layer invisible), button on the layer names.
Figure 1: The dialog for layers,
the cross indicates coupled layers, which can only be
channels and paths moved together. Then follows a small preview, A hard shadow
Sometimes you want to make an image or a
graphical element stand out a bit from the
background. A standard procedure for this is to lay
a hard shadow behind the element. And now you
can learn how to do this; this is a good way to start
learning how to work with layers. Create a new
image, for example 500x500 in size.
Open the layers dialog and click on the bottom
left button, to create a new layer. In the dialog that
appears, select a transparent background, name it
anything you like and accept the default size. After
a click on OK the second layer in the layers dialog
appears. Transparency in Gimp is symbolised by a
grey chessboard pattern. Since the layer is empty,
nothing changes in the image window.
Paint in this layer as you like with the painting
tools. Make sure a few areas remain transparent, so
that later the effect can be seen (Figure 2). Duplicate
the layers by clicking on the fourth button (the one
with the two sheets of paper). Now make the upper
layer invisible by clicking on the eye symbol and
Transparent GIFs
At this point we must address a very frequently
asked question: How does one use Gimp to create
GIFs, which are transparent at certain places? Lots
of people come to grief at the point at which they
want to define the transparency colour.
The answer is simple: you don’t even need to
define a transparency colour – Gimp does it for you.
If a certain area of an image is to be transparent,
give the image an alpha channel and etch some
holes, for example, in the image. If the image is
then saved as a GIF, Gimp will ensure that one
colour is reserved for the transparency.
Bear in mind that in this process, information is
lost. Gimp can save several degrees of transparency
Figure 4: A sharp hard Figure 5: in its own format, while the GIF format can only
shadow looks more artificial... ...than a soft-focus shadow
handle completely covering or completely
transparent pixels. If you have painted your image
The layer mask is a separate greyscale image, with nice soft contours, these will be lost when you
which can be used in addition to the normal alpha export it in the GIF format (see Figure 9). Here, in
channel to make certain areas of the layer some circumstances, help can be provided by the
transparent. A layer mask is created with Add layer
mask in the context menu in the layers dialog. Now
you will see a second preview image, and with the
mouse one can, by clicking on the respective
preview image, select whether to paint in the layer
or the layer mask.
Using the tiger image from last month. We now
want to release the tiger, so that he can more easily
The author be transplanted into a different environment. Load
Simon Budig would like the image into Gimp and give it an alpha channel,
readers to approach him with via <Image>/Layers/Add Alpha Channel. Now you
topic requests – otherwise this can paste a layer mask onto the image in the layers
series will soon peter out... dialog via the context menu. Right click on the
image in the layers list and choose the Apply Layers
Mask. In the dialog which appears, select White (full
covering power). If you now paint in the image with
black as foreground colour and any painting tool,
the image becomes transparent at the Figure 6: X Files here we come...
Figure 7: With the curve dialog, you can increase the glow
Future prospects
In the next part we will make a foray into the Gimp
menus. We will look at a few gems among the
plugins and see how these can be combined to
make a few nice effects. ■
Figure 9: Problems with the alpha channel in GIFs Figure 8: With the layer mask it is easy to release image elements
Alpha channel: refers to that part of a layer which contains information on transparency. The
alpha channel can be manipulated deliberately (with the curve tool) or protected (Retain
transparency in the layers dialog).
Release: is the name for the technique of separating a motif from the background. In our case the
tiger is separated from the landscape. The main motif can then later be inserted into other images.
GIF: is a file format which is very widely used on the WWW. Images saved in the GIF format can
define one (of the maximum 256) colours as ”transparent”. This means a pixel can be either
transparent – or again, not. Gimp’s model of transparency goes further: A pixel can have one of 256
levels of transparency. Since the GIF format unfortunately has a few licensing problems (LZW
compression), you should avoid it as far as possible in your own web projects and instead use PNG or
similar. Unfortunately support for PNG is not yet available in every web browser.